Dwarf Galaxies Discovered

d'alz writes "Two new satellite galaxies have been discovered in the Milky Way. These dim dwarf galaxies bring the total number of galaxies in the Milky Way's cosmic neighborhood to a total of 14. Of course, theorists believe there could be a hundred more. The two dwarfs were found in the direction of the constellations Canes Venatici (the hunting dogs) and Bootes (the herdsman), scientists studying the Sloan Digital Sky Survey said in a statement. However, even though these galaxies are presumably quite close, they are difficult to spot, as they are very dim, which is a defining characteristic of dwarf galaxies."

Comments

Dim dwarfs?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Surely you mean "challenged little galaxies" not "dim dwarf galaxies".

Freaking bigots...

I've heard this before

[DarthChris]

I remember hearing something about this [b]years[/b] ago. Is this old news or have they found galaxies additional to those already known?

Basic question on naming...

[porkchop_d_clown]

Seeing how these "galaxies" are smaller than many clusters, why are they called "galaxies"?

Is this just another arbitrary thing, like the difference between a "planet" and an "asteroid"?

Cue the D&D/LOTR/Mini-me jokes

[Rob T Firefly]

in 3.. 2.. 1..

Re:dark matter

[budgenator]

Mostly arrogence I'd guess, a "if we haven't seen it yet, it most be un-seeable" kind of a thing. These drawf galaxies are really just a speck of fly shit in the grand scale of things, and comparing them to the missing matter is like comparing mosquitoes to brontosaurses. So we'll just chuckle to ourselves and remember which was the last to bite us in the ass, and how much room there is for little specks of flyshit in the universe; then yell out "Hey , did you look over there yet?", like my wife does after she has "cleaned up" where i left my car keys.